"We Don't Rent Pigs"

I was wondering when the smurftongue pic was going to show itself; I have a weakness for blue raspberry slushes!!

Ive liked the orange slushies since I was a small person,headfreeze is worth it,to a point.

My DR is getting some fixes put on it,but this thread makes me want to get the thing out and go,Nevada aint that far from nor-cal.

The clay connection is good,always liked clay.

Planning is a necessary evil on a longer trip, especially with multiple travelers, but sometimes you just have to shuck everything and go, even if it's for a short trip. As we progressed further into our trip, I began to notice that people began to look at us differently when we would stop for gas or food, or at least I imagined it to be so; it may be that the subtle changes were happening internally. I've often wondered why it takes a multi-day trip to achieve this "travel nirvana", and how I can achieve this same feeling moving around my own state.

I have no idea what all this means, other than forget the fixes to the DR, throw some clothes and cash together, take half the clothes and twice the cash and just go find an orange slush in Nevada.

, y, and b n twm Ryder ruttrup

Oh it will happen,just a matter of rounding up some yokels to go along,the DR is sitting waiting for it's rebuilt shock but all else is go with it.

Its been from Chico to Nevada to southeastern Oregon and then Idaho on one go,never misses a beat.

Wow, good deal... I envisioned it needing new grips or something! Who's doing the shock?

Gotta say that I enjoyed reading your RR and seeing the pics - I especially enjoyed reading the feelings / opinions of "the west" from folks who aren't from this part of the country. I'm one of the fortunate ones: I was raised in a small town on the western edge of the "Great Basin" - in the Owens Valley of California, and I've lived in "the west" my entire life, scattered between Idaho, Nevada, a two year stint in the Denver-Metro area of Colorado (I couldn't wait to move out of the city), and Utah, and I've traveled across much of the Intermountain West.

You'll have to set up another trip for yourselves and hit up some other parts of Utah and other parts of the west. You can pretty much explore it for a lifetime and still not see it all...

I would love to see more of Utah; I remember Moab from my mountain biking days, when Rim Cyclery and one motel were all there was to the town. It shocked me to no end to see how it had exploded in the last 20 years.

Another area that blew me away was northern New Mexico, especially the people; they seem to exude a special vibe, and the topography around Chama and Eagles Nest is incredible. It reminds me in some ways of Gateway, in that you can go from desert to mountains and back again in just a few hours. I do realize that the roads and trails in the Ozarks and Ouachitas here in Arkansas are the envy of motorcyclists as well, so I guess it's all relative. The Ozarks have a much wilder feel than the Rockies or Smokies, not better or worse but definitely different; come see us sometime.

Theres a local suspension guy who has been at it for years,Hes a Race Tech school grad and has a good feel for forks and shocks. He put the Gold Valve in the back of this DR maybe 5 years and 29,000 miles ago. He revalved it twice for free after installation as race tech's valving was way stiff/harsh. But its worked well.

Somehow I ruined the shock shaft so I found a new donor shock and hes combining the two right now,+ adding a skosh of rebound damping.
Also got fresh grease on everything greasable,chain/sprockets/tire/chain slider/cush hub rubbers/spark plugs/etc. Then the forks come off for fresh oil,all cables are new. The thing should be ready for another 29,000 miles no problemo. A trip to Colorado would be good!

Thanks for the kind words; one angle I have purposefully downplayed on this trip (just so I wouldn't embarrass him) was getting to do this trip with my son. It's sometimes rough to acknowledge that your offspring has surpassed you in any given area, but I guess infinitely preferable to realizing that he will never surpass you. Watching him handle his bike, his gear and himself on a trip like this was worth more than all the vistas, sunsets, canyons, and crazy stories put together. It seems like only yesterday that he was telling me that he was going "ride the slab" on his TW200; the slab being a 5 mile stretch of curvy two-lane outside of our first motorcycle campsite. As the cares of life continue to slow me down, I hope he continues to push the boundaries; you only get one chance to listen to the wind, when it's gone it won't be back again.









Here's to the sunny slopes of long ago...

Very nicely spoken.

Can't believe what I saw early in this thread. How many of us would expect to get off with a "warning" for 71 in a 35? We all need luck like that!

Before this episode ended, there were three park rangers, a deputy with a drug sniffing dog, and a state trooper enroute; throw a bewildered Iranian woman into the mix and you have a very memorable traffic stop. I was already resigned to the fact that we were going to get jailed and the bikes impounded; I was stunned when we were just issued warning tickets. As we had just had lunch with the kerncountykid, I have to think there was some major mojo working in our favor.

In California the helicopters would have descended,trailers brought in,things would go far south. Any sort of speeding in a well traveled National park is a major source of revenue for the govt.

Your group has excellent mojo though,which helps.

Back on the road...

We had decided early in the trip to spend some time in Taos, but Zach's leaking counter sprocket coupled with the 4th of July weekend traffic caused us to ease through as quickly as possible. Once the bikes were pointed east towards home it was hard to keep from hammering, especially as we faced a huge line of thunderstorms forming over Eagle's Nest.




We tried to wait out the storm at a local diner, had a surreal visitor watching the front with us:



A westbound truck driver warned us of heavy rain, gravel washouts and piles of hail on the side of the road, turns out he wasn't kidding, fortunately the first batch of foul weather we had encountered since leaving Arkansas. The skies gradually began to clear as we ride through Eagles Nest state park, a truly awesome place.





While sitting around the fire in Pagosa, Fletch had mentioned a scene in Lonesome Dove where Gus presides over the funeral of the Irish boy who dies of multiple snakebites; Gus doesn't have the words to adequately describe his feelings, so he ends the service with a hand gesture symbolizing smoothing the ground over the grave. This is the exact feeling I had as we rolled into Raton, riding slower and slower as we approached our trucks, knowing that the reality beckoned but not willing to acknowledge that this whirlwind of new experiences was ending. I can only hope that this trip isn't over, just paused until the next opportunity presents itself, and we load up the bikes again.

Say it ain't so!

Awesome ride report. Well said as it pertains to riding with your son. My son is 17 and I hope to soon experience something like this with him - the time with our kids is so fleeting, we need to take advantage of quality time with them. Thanks for sharing.

nice RR
Thanks for sharing